~Sarad Pradhan~
Do you know the rise and fall of the Rana Regime? This question brings together fact and friction in a very vivid style in Seto Bagh, a legendary historical novel based on the rise of Rana Regime in Nepal. It shapes the narrator’s search for the connection for the recovery of lost information or repressed experience for the details of great trauma or joy that have receded in the archives of public or private memory. And, the narrator of this family profile is no other than the member of the same family which ruled Nepal for 104 years- Diamond Shumsher Rana, the doyen of Nepali literary circle.
Diamond Shumsher Rana, 78, is still dynamic and energetic writer. Then as an army man, he never thought of choosing pen instead of gun as part of his life long career. Turning point of his life came when an unforgettable incidence compelled him to change his course of life. The incidence had taken place in his early twenties.
“It was 1947. One fine day when I was playing cricket with late general Madan Shumsher, the tenth man in the role of succession, he told me that he had to go to a special meeting at Singha durbar. He accompanied me too. Besides, high ranking Rana officials, the then British Ambassador to Nepal was also explaining the departure of British from India. Ambassador told them to breach the Sangauli Treaty and to annex the land belonged to Nepal prior to the treaty. But they refused saying that the people of Darjeeling were politically conscious and would ask for Democracy,” he recalls.
“After meting I told Madan Shumsher it was a good deal. Instead of agreeing with me, he asked me to keep quiet. This news instantly spread among the Rana officials and they branded me revolutionary. There was no one to help me for I neither knew anybody in the grassroots level nor in upper echelon of the Rana family. So, I decided to take up literature as a medium of expression and livelihood,” he further says.
Hence, Basanti his first novel came out, not from Nepal but Banaras in 1947, the time when the power of Rana was in zenith. To his dismay, only a few people look interest in his work and very few copies were sold. In Darjeeling, the sales went up to two hundred copies.
“I took up historical novels to express my feeling because I found no other form of expression efficient to carry my feelings of parliamentary system of Democracy of Nepal. I have tried to show the failure of Rana system in these books, giving ample paradigms the failure of Rana was that in ruling the country they totally slaughtered the Democracy,” he explains.
Diamond Shumsher Rana is regarded by the critics as the first important historical novelist. His Basanti (1949), which have been translated into Hindi, describes the event upto the rise of Rana in 1846. The fabric of the work is centered on fictious character Basanti and the writers attempt is to present the historical tragedy. His next novel Seto Bagh (Wake of the Tiger1973),which have been translated into French, English and Japanese has its central character Jagat Jung, the son and the successor of Jung Bahadur Rana and the events cover the period after the death of the Rana supremancy. Rana’s Pratibaddhata (Committed) came out in 1977, Satprayas(True Attempt), the second part of Seto Bagh in 1091 and Anita in 1986.
Diamond Shumsher, who was thought to be a revolutionary by the Ranas, had been inside the jail during and after the Ranarchy. The two much acclaimed novel in the eyes of readers: Basanti and Seto Bagh are the finest creation of Diamond Shumsher which he wrote inside the jail.
Though his writing what he has been trying to show is the power gimmick whether during the Rana regime or after it. “The Rana rule was a burning example of success of Rana administration. They ruled Nepal for 104 years. But during the Rananarchy the most suffered a lot were Rana themselves. Because of the wealth of the Rana Prime Minister passed over only to his family and rest had to content with what they had,” he says.
To gather mammoth information on the history of Rana is not a joke in itself. But as a member of a Rana family, he did not find much difficulty in gathering information for his novels.
Diamond Shumsher, who believes in democracy, was the district president of Nepali Congress, Patan branch when the then government arrested him after the enactment of Panchayat system in Nepal in 1960. He stayed six years inside the jail and brought out Seto Bagh, a much-talked novel in Nepali.
Dan KO Dhaba, his latest novel is based on the Panchayat system. In this novel, he tries to explain how people used to get rich in the Panchayat system.
He is said to be the only writer who has made money out of literature in Nepal. “After spending years in jails, I had no contact with the outside world and the only thing I knew was writing. And, I found writing the only way to earn my livelihood.”
The French translation of Seto Bagh took him to France where he was treated well as they thought he would get rich after the grand sale of his book. But it proved wrong not because of the book or Diamond Shumsher but because of their market strategy. After his departure to Kathmandu, the publishers wrote back that the first edition of the book could not go well because the booksellers of Europe refused to accept his book as Nepali literature has no great literary history. And, Japanese publisher also replied in the same tone. “If we want to see our literature grow, we must translate them in English. The Royal Nepal Academy should come forward to start this noble venture,” he says.
“My books are taught in Banaras Hindu University and North Bengal University but widely neglected by Tribhuvan University,” he laments.
After suffering years in the jail, what did he achieve after all? “Democracy,” he says, “but it gives me freedom of expression। There is no big achievement for a writer other than it.”
(Source : The article was published in The Kathmandu Post in 1996)
